Essay about Tönnies in a pandemic (in Swedish)
On Gesellschaft and Gemeinschaft, in Svenska Dagbladet and Under Strecket – available here. And a chance to think about duckrabbits! Continue reading Essay about Tönnies in a pandemic (in Swedish)
Category: Commentary
The reception of Plato in China
Enjoyed this episode of Mindscape on my lunch walk today. Strongly recommended. One of the items they discuss is how Plato is received in China and how the Chinese scholars have read Plato’s Republic. There is an interesting bit about how the Noble Lie in Plato should be understood – since it seems deeply self-defeating to reveal that your ideal plan for a state rests … Continue reading The reception of Plato in China
In praise of phonecalls
The video-conference meeting is a hoax. We are sitting in front of screens watching other people and talking to them, but the reality is that a screen presence is nowhere near a real presence, and all of the attention that is drawn into trying to make sense of the other person on the screen, often in their study or kitchen or basement, is wasted. We … Continue reading In praise of phonecalls
Opening up subscriptions for newsletter for a bit
Edit 21.2: Thank you for the kind interest. I have no shifted over to by invitation only again, as not to have the community grow to larger or too fast. I really want feedback and ideas and not just maximize the number of readers. I have been running a newsletter in parallel to this blog for 8 weeks now. This is another part of my … Continue reading Opening up subscriptions for newsletter for a bit
In defense of technology lawyers or the mystery of leaving notes
Noam Bardin just wrote an interesting note on leaving Google. As the founder of Waze Bardin is without a doubt a brilliant entrepreneur and a great thinker. He is also by many metrics a long-time googler, with 7 years under his belt. His leaving note, however, does leave me feeling exasperated. Bardin details the story of the small start-up being absorbed by the mothership, slowly … Continue reading In defense of technology lawyers or the mystery of leaving notes
Re-imagining magic
I am reading Chris Gosdens remarkable The History of Magic: From Alchemy to Witchcraft from the Ice Age to the Present (2020) and already in the beginning there is an amazing remark that I think is worth thinking about. Gosden retells the story of the Azande, as studied by Evans-Pritchard, and how they viewed magic. If someone happened to be crushed by a granary collapsing … Continue reading Re-imagining magic
A weird lesson from prozac-infused fish
Scientists report that the residual amounts of drugs, like Prozac, are affecting the fish that live in waste water in weird ways. Here is a report from ScienceAlert: To probe further, Polverino and his team ran a two-year experiment in the lab, subjecting generations of guppies (Poecilia reticulata) to targeted concentrations of fluoxetine at low levels, on par with the chemical’s pollution in aquatic environments, … Continue reading A weird lesson from prozac-infused fish
Practicing predictions (Mental models IX)
Predicting is hard, especially the future, as Yogi Berra supposedly pointed out. But it is interesting – but not necessarily for the reasons we originally think. Predicting the future is interesting not because you want to find out if you are right, but you want to use the predictions you make to tease out the narratives that are organizing your understanding of the world. I … Continue reading Practicing predictions (Mental models IX)
Balancing our intelligence investment portfolio
It is no secret that AI is currently a hot subject – in politics, law and, of course, in investing. The idea here is right: this new technology may well revolutionize business after business and not paying attention to it would be folly. But there is an interesting question sitting at the edges of the current fervor with which we pursue artificial intelligence, and that … Continue reading Balancing our intelligence investment portfolio
A question of power?
One of the core criticisms of platforms is that they have become far too powerful. While this is more of a throw-away comment, it is interesting to examine it up close to see if it can be turned into a hypothesis and tested – and what I am most interested in testing is not if platforms have become too powerful, since that will be a … Continue reading A question of power?
